Here Comes The Hive Mind

31Mar

Don’t worry, you already clicked “I Agree”.

In the not too distant future, our advertising will become ubiquitous. Minority Report the Steven Spielberg film showed this with retina scanning, jazzing things up a bit. In all actuality this could be done now with your phones and simple proximity. Ads custom tailored to you based on your purchase history & assessed needs on time of day, education, location, gender….and so on. Don’t worry you’ll love it when it reminds you to X, because it was designed to make your life easier and for good purpose. The collection of things like this that build, meaning targeted advertising tailored to personal preference technologies, the more we will like it. Why advertising? If you’re senior management, boardroom chairman, or owner you already know online advertising takes money & time but always produces more customers.

Capitalism requires us all to participate to work well, but as time goes on even the TV show South Park knows ads are increasingly hiding as content, content sets the narrative…and since it’s a search feedback loop or the Facebook throttling posts, we will like what we see. It essentially reinforces by our own desires not by means of an evil evilness in the world, instead it’s acceptance of free services in exchange for ads.

But I like me, me is good.

Ohnoes! This is all very bad right? Well let’s look at what has happened to get the world more connected. Reading, writing, the printing press, the train, the automobile, and of course media new and old. Steven Pinker has a book called, “Better Angels of Our Nature” that exposes the man on man death rate to have steadily declined over time as a result of our interconnections. But I like me, me is good. Well I can tell you the difference between good and evil and it might shock you…you makes you evil.

Let’s look at it this way, any action or intent for others is good, anything that benefits only the self is evil. Any action can be described in those terms, and assign bias based on the action. Didn’t put the toilet seat down? Pure evil you selfish bastard. Ok, maybe it’s not all so black…or so white. If people are killing each other less, than we must see in it the more people’s point of views we understand, the closer we get to harmony & of course that hive mind you are so worried about. So buckle up, because if you didn’t want it, you shouldn’t have clicked “I agree”.

Here Comes The Hive Mind

About The Author

JP Chastain -
2006 Graduate of Columbia University in the City of New York, with a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) in the field of Cognitive Psychology and Psycholinguistics. After realizing the implications of the “Big Data” age, he has focused on lifting the veil on SEO, digital advertising, & traditional media.